British High Commissioner, Diane Corner, akihutubia katika hafla ya besidei ya malkia wa Uingereza. Queen’s Birthday Party Speech by British...
British High Commissioner, Diane Corner, akihutubia katika hafla ya besidei ya malkia wa Uingereza.
Queen’s Birthday Party Speech by British High Commissioner, Diane Corner.
The theme of the Queen’s Birthday party this year is celebrating British business in Tanzania. And to help us celebrate we’ve got a list of sponsors who all help to showcase British business talent here, drawn together by our flourishing British Business Group.
With thanks to CMC autos; Ophir Energy; Tullow Oil; Drum Cussac; Sincrositewatch; Sollatek; Plastec; TICTS; Promasidor; DHL; Standard Chartered Bank; BG Group; TBL and Sea Cliff Hotel.
This year is the 50th anniversary of independence for mainland Tanzania. It’s a good time to reflect on our bilateral relationship, where we’ve come from and where we’re going to. Two weeks ago today the British Minister for Africa Henry Bellingham arrived in Tanzania for a visit that really showcased the breadth and the depth of our relationship. In Dar and Zanzibar he met both Presidents, and a range of ministers. He launched a British Council programme in Zanzibar and the British business website in Dar, and had briefings on our aid to Tanzania and to the EAC. In Arusha, Dar and Zanzibar he met British investors in Tanzania. And we finished off with a trip to Mtwara to see how British businesses are exploring for oil and gas several kilometres under the sea.
For me the visit was a testimony to how close our two countries remain – politically, economically, culturally, through our educational links and through our shared membership of the Commonwealth. We’ve travelled a long way together in those 50 years since 1961.
Last week, the British Secretary of State for International Development Andrew Mitchell published a new policy document called “the Engine of Development – the Private Sector and prosperity for poor people”. In his introduction he looked back to Britain as it was around 150 years ago. Considered against the timeline of human history it’s really not that long ago. Britain in the mid-19th century was not dissimilar from many developing countries today. Life expectancy was around 40 years, around 1 in 10 babies died in infancy, nearly 50% of the population was rural and dependent on agriculture, and educational opportunity was very limited. The transformation in Britain since then is largely due to private enterprise. Farmers experimented with new techniques and revolutionised productivity. Enterpreneurs build new industries. Pioneering business people developed a whole range of new businesses. The wealth produced by enterprise helped fund hospitals, schools and a host of social services and created the Britain of today, one of the world’s richest countries.
In the last fifty years, many countries have started that kind of transformation. Botswana, China, India, the Republic of Korea, Oman and Thailand have all seen high and sustained GDP growth. All are now middle income countries or higher, and are rising. Life expectancy has increased, educational attainment is high, and people look forward to a prosperous future for themselves and their children.
But other countries have not done so well, and are languishing behind.
So what do countries in this category need to do to succeed? They need to grow their own economies, to develop and transform their agriculture so that it can feed their fast-growing populations. They need to nurture free enterprise and creativity, so that the private sector can be the engine of growth. And they need to reduce the barriers to trade, to open up their markets – because that is how they open themselves to opportunities, to new skills, to new products and to new markets for everything that they have to sell. This is what has worked in all of those fast-growing economies, and it’s what is needed to make economies grow even faster.
This kind of transformation is something on which Tanzania and Britain can work together. It’s a major part of our aid programme for the next 4 years: we will scale up programmes to increase the incomes of the rural poor, increase access to finance, reduce the cost of doing business, and through an EAC-wide programme, reduce the trade and transport costs that limit the competitiveness of Tanzanian exports.
Let’s think too about the role that foreign investment can play in developing an economy. Many countries are eager to attract foreign investment. It’s a top priority for Tanzania, and it’s also a top priority for the British Government.
I recently had the chance to visit the Landrover research and development centre. Landrover as you will know is an iconic British brand, producing some great products. And what some of you may also know is that it’s now owned by Tata, the Indian corporation. I was able to hear some of the benefits that that inward investment to the UK had brought – it had safeguarded about 45,000 jobs; injected much-needed capital into the firm to enable them to develop new models such as the wonderful Discovery you see here today, the new Range Rover Evoque due out later this year; and they are now recruiting 1000 new engineers too. In short it’s been a huge success.
This is the kind of success that British investment can bring to Tanzania. According to the TIC, British investors have since 1990 invested around $1.5bn in this country, creating around 240,000 jobs – that’s four times as many as the next country on the list. Those investors bring capital to invest in machinery and buildings; they bring training and skills to the workforce here; they bring expertise and technical know-how to tackle engineering and other complex projects here; they ensure that the market here is linked-in to the world market; and they bring wealth to Tanzania, creating profits which they share through paying their staff and paying taxes and other dividends. And they’ve also brought something else to Tanzania, perhaps the most important thing of all – a realisation, that with the right skills and capital, Tanzanians can also do what they are doing. They’ve given Tanzanians self-confidence and self-actualisation, and you see it in the growing number of successful Tanzanian-run businesses.
But it’s not always easy for investors to work here. I hear frequently of problems with the authorities, whether the TRA or the Immigration or the planning or other local authorities. And I hear of potential investors coming to have a look at Tanzania, and deciding that it’s too difficult and that they will invest elsewhere.
What’s behind these problems? Sometimes it’s lack of clarity around the regulations, sometimes it’s unnecessary bureaucracy and red tape, sometimes it’s lack of resources, and sometimes, saddest of all, it’s corruption – maybe just a small bribe here and there, but it’s like a cancer that you need to treat now or it will grow and destroy the health of this economy.
Nevertheless, British investors are resilient and tough, and don’t give up easily. Everywhere I go in this country I seem to meet a Brit doing business (often working alongside a Brit running an NGO), and mostly they are doing well. And they’re all committed to Tanzania – it’s a country full of wonderful people who inspire great affection.
One of the things we are promoting is a better dialogue between private investors and the government, so that they can jointly tackle the problems through a collaborative approach. We’ve already initiated a dialogue, with our European partners, with the Tanzania Revenue Authority, and we’d like to build on that. At its best, a collaborative dialogue results in investors coming up with constructive suggestions, and the government taking these into consideration and testing out its own ideas on the investor community. It’s a real win-win approach.
I often hear Tanzania described as one of the poorest countries in the world. While that may be true in terms of nominal GDP per capita, it’s a phrase that does not adequately capture what is happening in this country. This is a country of huge potential. At The Economist conference last November, one speaker pointed out that while Tanzania has high growth rates, an average of 7% per annum for the last ten years, with a bit more work on reducing barriers to trade you could reach a really spectacular 10% plus.
Because this is a country of people not just trying but determined to get a better life. You see it in the number of people who try to sell you things at all hours of the day or night. You see it in the commuters – whether they are driving to work in early in the morning in Dar es Salaam, or walking miles to school in Iringa. It’s a busy country with people working hard to get a better life for themselves and their families. Tanzanians deserve to succeed – and we’re determined to help them to do just that.
And on that note, ladies and gentlemen I would like you to join me in toasting the health and wellbeing of the President of Tanzania, HE Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete, and of the people of Tanzania. May the future bring them happiness and prosperity.
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